


Madhumakkhi

by Mytrice



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Indian!Victor, M/M, Viclock, Victor playing the flute, Victor speaking Hindi, Victor speaks other languages too, happy flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-30
Updated: 2014-12-30
Packaged: 2018-03-04 10:10:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3063974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mytrice/pseuds/Mytrice
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Victor has to leave Sherlock to work with his father in India, they both find the prospect difficult to accept. Follows the story of the last time they see each other with added moments from their past. </p><p> My entry for the Exchangelock Gift Exchange for mystery-of-the-cake-topper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Madhumakkhi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mystery-of-the-cake-topper](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=mystery-of-the-cake-topper).



> For the prompt: Sherlock and Victor Trevor seeing each other for the last time.
> 
> This also turned into a personal study as to how many times I could get Victor to call Sherlock Bee in different languages. 
> 
> Translations in the end notes.

_‘ This station is ‘Heathrow Terminal Five’. This train terminates here. All change please. Please ensure that you have all of your belongings with you when you leave the train. Thank you for travelling on the Piccadilly Line.’_

“Bee? Would you at least acknowledge me?” Victor pleaded, as they stepped off of the tube. “You agreed to come with me and yet you won’t even look at me. This is ridiculous.”

Sherlock kept close to Victor’s side as they passed through the station barriers and into the departure hall. He hated airports. They were too loud, too bright and everyone around them seemed oblivious to everyone else. Sherlock had lost count of the number of times he’d been run into by a luggage trolley.

Victor sighed audibly and carried on walking towards baggage check-in. He knew Sherlock would be difficult but he hadn’t quite expected this. He had been hoping that the last time he saw his boyfriend for the foreseeable future would have been slightly more romantic than this.

Sherlock continued to ignore Victor as they queued to check his luggage in. He appeared to be fascinated by the list of departures, the people rushing in and out of WHSmith and anything else that wasn’t his boyfriend.

 It didn’t take Victor long to notice Sherlock’s hand twitching at his side, fingers longing to reach out and intertwine with his.

“Don’t be so stubborn, Abeille.” He chastised, reaching out and grabbing Sherlock’s hand. Victor wasn’t surprised to feel Sherlock’s tapered fingers slide between his, gripping his hand slightly too tightly.

Victor’s chest tightened as Sherlock smiled at him fleetingly. The smile was an exact replica of the first one Victor ever saw adorning the younger boy’s lips and he knew it was unlikely that he would ever see it again.

* * *

 

Victor was hunched over the table, notebook open in front of him and textbook beside him. The library was busy today, exams were only two weeks away and it appeared that most of the students had just realised that.

He’d been in the library for almost four hours, having got there before most of the students had woken and was therefore sitting in his favourite seat beside the window. Looking over the rooftops of Cambridge was a welcome distraction when the translated passages in front of him seemed to be encrypted with some sort of unbreakable code.

Victor was startled out of his reverie by a pile of books that were dropped down onto the table beside him. The resulting noise caused several heads to look up from their desks, sending glares in Victor’s direction.

He was mouthing an apology when an extremely gangly boy sat down beside him. The boy glanced at Victor, seemingly studying him with piercing blue eyes before turning to the books he’d just thrown down onto the table.

Victor didn’t recognise him, he must have been a first year student and apart from tutoring he had little to do with the younger years. He wasn’t a translation and linguistics student either, judging by the pile of organic chemistry books he’d placed in front of him.

The boy had obviously sensed him staring and looked up from his reading, glaring in response to Victor’s attempt at a friendly smile.

Victor shrugged. In his opinion, people with science majors had always been a bit strange.

About an hour had passed when the young boy leaned over and murmured to him. “You’ve made a mistake in the second part of your worksheet. You’ve used the wrong pronoun for the dog. You used the ‘you’ form when you should have used he, she or it.”

Victor looked up from the worksheet in surprise. He read over the paragraph sighing when he saw the mistake. “Koosayet not koosayetye.” He murmured, crossing his answer through. “The dog bites you.” Victor put his pen down and rubbed his eyes. “I don’t normally make mistakes like that. I’m usually more careful. I’m Victor, by the way.”

The boy watched him closely before offering his hand. “I’m Sherlock.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you.” Victor said, letting go of Sherlock’s hand after the other boy held on for slightly too long. “Are you in your first year?”

“Yes, I’m reading Chemistry.” The boy said, looking anywhere but Victor’s eyes. “Going by your textbook, I’d say that you’d just started your masters in translation.”

“That was very perceptive.” Victor replied, straightening the book that sat in front of him.  He looked up suddenly at the sound of Sherlock snorting. “What?”

“You think that that was perceptive?” He said, finally meeting Victor’s gaze, a hint of a smile on his lips.  

* * *

 

Victor continued to hold Sherlock’s hand tightly, squeezing it every now and then to remind Sherlock that for the moment he was still beside him. Sitting down in front of the screens with departure details, Sherlock spoke for the first time that morning.

“I can see your flight.” He stated, voice bereft of any emotion. “British Airways flight BA3201 to New Delhi. We-“ He paused. “ _You_ have forty minutes until the gate opens.”

“I can wait a bit longer than that if you’d like me to.”

“No, you couldn’t bear that. You’d be too worried about being late. Wouldn’t listen to a word I had to say.” Sherlock said, gently nudging Victor. “I know you well enough by now.”

Victor chuckled softly, tucking a strand of Sherlock’s hair behind his ear. “And I know what you’re like. I know this is hellish for you. I know you would do anything to make me stay in London with you but I have to go and work for my father. I’d let you come with me if it wasn’t for your studies. We could have run the plantation together. You dreaming up new natural pesticides and experimenting with the plants like you were Mendel or something while I translated the documents and spoke to foreign clients.”

Sherlock sighed. He didn’t want to talk about this anymore. Every conversation he’d held with Victor for the past three months had always ended up in the same place.

“Once I’ve finished my masters I’m going to come out to the plantation and stay with you.” Sherlock said quietly.

“I look forward to seeing you then, Pchyelka.” Victor murmured, pressing a kiss to Sherlock’s cheek as the screen changed to say that they had twenty five minutes until the gate opened.

* * *

 

“Victor!” Sherlock shouted as he burst through the door of a language classroom. The curly haired boy leaned against the wall desperately trying to catch his breath.

Victor and his first year student both looked up startled from the test paper that they had been going through. “What is it, Sherlock? Is everything alright? You can see that I am busy. What’s wrong?”

Sherlock took a moment to settle his breathing before he replied. “My brother is here to visit.”

“And you ran all the way from our flat to tell me that? What’s wrong with your brother visiting?”

Sherlock nodded, pushing off of the wall and making his way over to the desk Victor was sitting at. “I could tolerate him for a few hours but he said that he wants to meet you too, which I forgot to mention to you last week.”

Victor tried to hide his smile and observed Sherlock closely for a second. “Did your brother see you run out of our flat as fast as you could? He’ll think that you’re avoiding him.”

“No, he didn’t see me. I climbed down the drain pipe at the back of the flat and through the back gardens. He wouldn’t have seen me.” Sherlock perched on the edge of the desk, startling the student that sat next to Victor. “He’ll just assume that I had forgotten his appointment.”

“So let me get this straight. You ran all the way here to fetch me so that I could meet your brother?”

Sherlock nodded slowly. “Yes. He said he wanted to meet you. He wanted to know who could hold my interest for so long.”

Victor got to his feet and began to pack away his books and pencils. “You could have just text, Bee. It is quite normal for your family to want to meet your boyfriend. I have been expecting this for a while.”

Sherlock nodded and brushed his unkempt fringe from his eyes. “I suppose I could do that in the future.”

“That might be the wiser thing to do, yes.” Victor turned to his bemused student and smiled apologetically. “I’m sorry, Peter. We’ll arrange another time to meet which I promise won’t be interrupted by my boyfriend. I’ll bring some chocolate for you next time we meet as a consolation.”

Victor headed to the door and slipped his arm around Sherlock’s waist, leading him out of the room. “Come on then, Háziméh.”

* * *

 

 Sherlock and Victor sat in uncomfortable silence as they watched the minutes on the departure board slowly get closer to zero.

“I suppose you’ll need to go through to security in a minute.” Sherlock stated, his emotionless tone matching the blank look on his face. Victor hated that expression. It was the face he used when he was trying to hold back a huge wave of emotion, be it positive or negative.

“You’re right but I can wait for a few more. I’m not that eager to leave you.” Victor tried to laugh but his attempt at a joke fell flat. “Come here.” He said pulling a tense Sherlock into his arms. Victor ran his fingers down Sherlock’s cheek, his brown skin contrasting against Sherlock’s pale complexion.

“It’s going to be alright.” Sherlock murmured. “We’ll manage to stay together somehow.”

“Yes, it’s going to be fine. We can call each other and write letters. I’ll send you photographs of anything interesting I can find. You can visit for a week or two in the summer if you’d like. My mother wants to see you again.” Victor leaned over, keeping his arms tightly bound around Sherlock’s chest. “We’re going to be fine.” He murmured against the shorter boy’s cheek before following the path he’d just traced with his fingers with his lips.

* * *

 

In the first few months of Sherlock and Victor’s relationship before they were living together, Sherlock had developed the habit of turning up unannounced at Victor’s flat at any time of day and making himself at home. It was a habit that Victor wasn’t sure whether he was fond of or not. It was nice to have company but Sherlock could be very distracting and extremely persuasive.

It was when Sherlock was climbing the last flight of stairs to Victor’s apartment that he began to hear the faint strains of what sounded like a flute. He listened to it for a moment before reaching for the key he knew Victor kept underneath the doormat for whenever he felt like letting himself in.

Opening the door, the sound of the flute became louder and Sherlock walked into Victor’s bedroom to find him, sitting on his bed, a wooden flute in his hands.

“Hello.” Victor said, smiling at Sherlock who was standing in the doorway. “You can come in, you know.”

“I didn’t know you played.” Sherlock stated, sitting down on the bed beside Victor and taking the flute out of his hands.

“Yes, I’ve played since I was a boy, before I even came here to study.” Victor smiled softly at the flute Sherlock was turning over in his hands. “When I got to Eton, the music master introduced me to the Western flute which I enjoyed learning just as much. I have that here too.”

Sherlock listened intently, running his fingers over the silk threads that were tied around the instrument at varying intervals. “What’s this actually called? I want to know its proper name not just whatever’s easier in English.”

It hadn’t taken Sherlock long to notice that Victor treasured his first language. It wasn’t uncommon to walk into a room to find the other boy singing to himself in Hindi whether it was a song from a Bollywood film that he’d watched the night before or a lullaby his grandmother had taught him. He sang them to Sherlock sometimes, if the mood took him. Despite years of having to speak English, it was plain to see that Victor was much more comfortable when speaking in his mother tongue; the words seemed to flow effortlessly from his lips.

Victor laughed and took the instrument from Sherlock’s hands. “We call it a bansuri in Hindi but it has many different names depending on which language you are speaking. This one was my grandfather’s. It was sent over to me when he died. Apparently, he wanted no one else to have it but me. I don’t play it very often now. I used to play it when I missed my family and to remind me of home but now I have you I rarely feel like that.

Sherlock nodded wordlessly, leaning against Victor’s side. “We could play together.” The curly haired boy smirked. “But only if you’re good enough of course. I don’t want to waste my time.”

Victor swatted playfully at Sherlock’s arm. “I am probably just as good if not better at the flute than you are at the violin.” Victor brought the bansuri to his lips. “I just don’t show off as much as you do, Honningbien.”

* * *

 

At eight minutes to the gate of flight BA3201 opening, Victor sighed deeply before patting Sherlock’s knee. “I suppose this is it.” He said softly.

Sherlock slowly got his feet and took hold of Victor’s hand, leading him over to security. “Yes, I suppose it is.” He murmured his voice thick with emotion. “I don’t know how I’m going to manage without you, Victor.” He admitted, burying his head into the taller man’s shoulder.

“You’ll manage perfectly fine in the end. It’s just going to be difficult at first.” Victor’s hands found their way into Sherlock’s hair as an announcement for five minutes came over the tannoy system. “Trust me.”

Sherlock hummed softly. “I trust you more than most. I’m just not sure I can do it this time.”

“Just try for me, Bee.” Victor soothed, twisting Sherlock’s curls between his fingers.

Sherlock let out a shaky breath and looked up to Victor’s face, meeting his gaze. “I will.”

“I love you, Madhumakkhi, mere Madhumakki.” Victor replied, kissing Sherlock’s lips gently before pulling away.

“I love you too.” Sherlock murmured, clumsily wiping away the tears that had escaped with the heel of his hand as he watched Victor go into the departure lounge, knowing that the other man would find it too difficult to look back.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope that you liked it. I enjoyed writing this a lot. Here are the translations: 
> 
> Abeille= Bee= French  
> Pchyelka (Пчелка)= Bee= Russian, endearment form of Пчела (Pchyela)  
> Háziméh= Honey Bee= Hungarian  
> Honningbien =Honey Bee= Danish  
> Madhumakkhi (मधुमक्खी) = Bee= Hindi  
> Additional Translations:  
> Koosayet (Кусает) and Koosayetye (Кусаете) are both present tense forms of the verb ‘to bite’(кусать). The sentence ‘the dog bites you’ was supposed to be a reference.  
> Mere (मेरे ) is just a possessive meaning my or mine so ‘mere Madhumakkhi’ (मेरे मधुमक्खी) means ‘my Bee’.


End file.
